LAUREN

 

 

Due to my less than appetising lunch, I was starving when Tyler’s car finally pulled into the carpark. But when the tinted window rolled down, it wasn’t Tyler’s face who smiled back at me. It was Sadie’s.

“Hey,” she greeted happily. “Tyler’s stuck at work. He won’t be too much longer but he couldn’t get away on time so he sent me instead. He’ll meet us at Maria’s.”

“Oh,” was all I managed to say. I put my pack in the backseat and climbed into the car.

“Good day?” Sadie asked.

I nodded, choosing to keep my eyes fixed on the blur of buildings out the window. The car fell into silence. Sadie kept glancing over at me, but I didn’t know what to say to her. It was best to say nothing.

“Sorry about this morning,” Sadie said finally. “It was never my intention to make you feel uncomfortable. Ty should have told you I was there. He should have told you I was coming over.”

“Have you worked with him long?”

“About seven years now. We met at uni when he was an overzealous student with no friends. I taught him how to have fun.” Her face twisted into a comical smile. “Well, I did. I’m not so sure he’s capable of it anymore.” She smiled, trying to get one out of me, but I still wasn’t sure what to make of this woman who was such a big part of Tyler’s life. A big, beautiful part.

“There’s nothing between us,” she added.

“So you keep saying.”

Maria greeted us enthusiastically, throwing her arms around us both when we were seated at the same table Tyler and I had sat at a few months ago.

Sadie ordered a drink and kept checking her phone, silence sitting between us awkwardly. When her gin and tonic arrived, she threw it back in one mouthful, wiping her mouth afterwards but still, somehow, managing to look together and glamorous. “He’s so used to getting me to fill in for him at work, meetings he’s running late for, conference calls he can no longer attend, so I guess it just never occurred to him that it wasn’t a good idea in his personal life.”

Tyler appeared behind her and she got up from her seat quickly. “Oh good, you’re here,” she said.

He grinned and walked over to plant a kiss on my forehead. “I am.”

“Well, that’s my cue.” Sadie gathered her jacket from where she had hung it over the back of her seat and slipped it over her shoulders. “Don’t forget about tomorrow night,” she warned Tyler.

“What’s happening tomorrow night?”

Tyler waved aside my question. “How was your day?”

I slunk back onto my seat and folded my arms. “Next time you’re running late, a simple text message will do. I don’t need a babysitter.”

“You’re annoyed,” Tyler said. I wasn’t sure if it was a question or a statement, but either way, it was correct. Tyler sat back in his seat, crossing his arms, mimicking my pose. “Because of Sadie.”

“As I said, I don’t need a babysitter.”

“Lauren.” Tyler leaned forward again, reaching out, urging me to take his hand but I kept mine folded across my chest. “Sadie is a big part of my life.”

“So she said.”

He ignored my comment and continued. “We went to University together. We kept in contact as she travelled the world and when she came back, I offered her a job as my assistant until she found something better. She has been with me ever since and is brilliant at her job. We have never been together. Ever. Never even shared a kiss, nothing more than a peck on the cheek. Any problem you have with her is purely in your head. You need to get over it.” He spoke so plainly and bluntly, annoyance crept up my spine.

“Get over it?” I repeated. I was annoyed but knew there was truth in his words.

“I give you my word that I am only interested in you. So unless you don’t trust me, you are going to have to learn to get along with Sadie.”

My skin prickled. Although I agreed with his words, the way he expressed himself, the way he told me what to do, how to feel, sat uneasily with me. Tyler shuffled his seat around the circular table until he was beside me. His hand stretched out under the table and rested on my knee. “I swear to you that Sadie is nothing but a friend. A good friend. An old friend. But just a friend, nonetheless.”

“So next time I come across Gabe, you wouldn’t have a problem if I’m friends with him?”

Tyler tensed. His hand fell from my knee. “That is a completely different situation.”

“How?”

He took a sip of the whiskey the waiter placed in front of him. “Because,” he leaned closer, his voice dropping low. “You haven’t had to see a freshly fucked look on Sadie’s face when she appeared with me. You haven’t had to watch her grope me while drunk, or watch my lips on hers as I stared at you over her shoulder. You haven’t had to see those things because they never happened. If they had, I would understand your feelings, but given the circumstances of the relationship you had with Gabe were very different from the one I have with Sadie, I don’t think I’m the one being unreasonable here.” He turned to the waiter and pointed to the now empty whiskey glass. “Another, please.”

The rest of the conversation during dinner was polite but strained. Suddenly I felt as though I were back in the car when I first arrived, though instead of butterflies flitting around my stomach, it was dread. I didn’t want him to look at me with hesitation in his eyes. I wanted him to look at me with affection, with desire, but I didn’t know how to get back there. Our conversation about Gabe and Sadie weighed heavily between us.

* * *

Once we arrived back at the loft and the elevator groaned to a stop, Tyler walked into the bedroom, removing his tie and jacket. He returned moments later wearing a plain shirt and ripped jeans that hung so wonderfully off his hips.

“Want a coffee?” he asked, as he moved to the kitchen, his bare feet padding softly across the polished concrete floor.

“I’ll never sleep if I have one this late.”

“I never do, anyway.” He flicked the kettle on and moved to the pantry to get more beans for the grinder.

I looked over the kitchen bench, noting a lack of a coffee maker. “No fancy coffee machine?”

“I like plunger coffee best. Dark and strong.”

He barely looked at me. Instead, he rifled through the cupboards, searching for something he never found. I missed the way he looked at me. I wanted to see desire, and know that it was me who had put it there.

With trembling fingers, I began to undo the buttons of my shirt, quietly and slowly, so not to catch his attention. Buttons released, I let the shirt slip over my shoulders to the floor before reaching behind my back to unclasp the hook of my bra and letting it follow. Tyler leaned against the bench with his back to me, staring out at the lights of the city while he waited for the coffee. I undid the buttons of my jeans and wiggled out of them, discarding them along with my shoes and underwear. The movement caught Tyler’s attention and our eyes met in the reflection of the window.

I stood naked and vulnerable in the middle of the room, my heart pounding in my chest, my nipples hardening with anticipation.

Tyler turned slowly, his steel-coloured eyes dark and stormy. They travelled over my body slowly, slipping down my neck and over my chest. I almost could feel it when they fell to the patch of hair between my legs, and my breath hitched.

“Come here,” he commanded.

I trembled. But it wasn’t with fear. There was nothing he could do, nothing he would do, that would make me fearful of him. I knew I could walk away from anything he might ask of me.  The reason I trembled was because I didn’t want to. I wanted to do whatever made him happy. And that scared me.

I walked across the floor as Tyler’s jaw tightened, working back and forth the closer I got. When I was only inches from him, I stopped. He didn’t touch me. His hand didn’t reach out and stroke my flesh like I wanted, like I was aching for. He adjusted himself, his arousal now obvious and then started undoing the buttons on his shirt. One by one they fell, exposing the tanned and muscled skin beneath. I longed to lean forward and run my tongue over the smooth plane of his chest. But Tyler was still undressing, his eyes locked on mine, dark and hungry. His shirt fell to the floor. His shoes got tossed to the side. His jeans pooled in a black puddle at his feet. But still, he did not touch me.

“Kneel.”

My heart leapt at his command. There was something undeniably sexy in the way he spoke. Something that had me aching to obey. I dropped to my knees, keeping my eyes firmly fixed on his and knelt in front of him. Reaching down he ran his fingers over my lips roughly, his thumb dipping inside my mouth.

“Open.”

   I opened my mouth and he closed his eyes, taking a deep breath before gripping onto himself and stroking his hardness. Reaching down once again, he gripped my chin, pulling it down to open my mouth further and then guided himself in, groaning as my lips wrapped around his cock. I sucked him hungrily and eagerly, moving closer to place my hands on the backs of his thighs, running them up his flesh until I felt the roundness of his backside. His fingers threaded through my hair, gathering the strands and piling them between his fingers in a fountain on the top of my head. His hands rested there, gripped in my hair as I moved back and forth over the length of him, his hardness growing to steel every time the tip of him brushed against the back of my throat.

The tightness of his grip increased. I could feel the wetness creeping between my legs, the ache of my breasts as they longed for his mouth. Tyler grunted and my scalp tingled as he used the grip on my hair to control the motion of my mouth. I convulsed when he pushed deeply, confused by the strange waves of desire that pulsed through me. I drew back, gasping for air before Tyler pulled me towards him again and I took him in my mouth, hungry for more. Holding my head still, he pushed into me. I struggled to breathe for the briefest of moments before he released, pulling me to my feet and taking my mouth roughly. He pressed his body against mine, pushing until my backside hit the lip of the bench and he wrapped his arm under me, lifting me onto the cold marble. Scooting me forward so I was balanced on the edge of the bench, Tyler pushed my legs apart, fell to his knees and inserted a single finger into my glistening sex.

“My god, you’re wet,” he said as he worked his finger in and out. Dipping his head, he ran his tongue along the full length of my slit, before sitting back and sliding his finger inside once again. A second finger, and then a third. The desire I wanted to see earlier screamed in his eyes. Removing his fingers, he licked off my juices before closing his mouth over me again. His dark head bobbed between my thighs and the familiar feeling of wanting to dissolve began to creep through my limbs. No longer able to control it, I lay back on the bench, surrendering to his affection. I was so close when he stood up and pushed my legs further apart before standing between them, the tip of him resting against my entrance.

“I need to fuck you before you come,” he said, and the gravel of his voice throbbed and pulsed through me.

He was gentle at first, rocking back and forth, his hand spread across my stomach. “I love your breasts.” His hands moved upwards, massaging the flesh between his fingers as his intensity increased and he rammed into me. He pulled out, leaving me feeling empty while he bent and pressed his mouth to the crease of my thigh. “And this little part right here.” I squirmed as he ran his tongue along the sensitive flesh, before moving to the other side. “I find this part of you very, very sexy.”

   Again I squirmed and tried to adjust the position of him, letting him know I wanted—no—I needed him inside me again.

“What do you want, Lauren?” he asked, holding my legs firmly apart but not giving me the attention I desired.

I moaned, writhing against the cool marble. My hand moved down to touch myself but Tyler caught it in his. “No,” he said, pulling my hand away and brushing his mouth over the knuckles. “What do you want?” he asked again.

“You,” I panted.

He thrust inside. And, as I was wrenched across the bench, the skin of my back gripped to the marble painfully.

His fingers dug into the flesh of my hips. “And what do you want me to do to you?”

I whimpered, grinding my hips against his, but he held me tightly and firmly, not letting me rock against him.

“What do you want me to do to you?” He was hard and big and I felt incredibly tight wrapped around him. Letting go of one side of my hips, he gripped onto my chin, directing my gaze to his. “Tell me.”

“I want you to fuck me,” I whispered breathlessly.

His hand gripped back to my side and he began to move inside me forcefully. With each thrust, my skin pinched beneath me and I was jolted across the bench. Tyler held my thighs and pulled me back against the bench towards him, slamming into me with a slap, his cock ramming further than it had before. Time and time again, he thrust until the ripples of desire began to pulsate through me and I cried out. Pulling me closer, his rhythm did not stop as I dissolved, my body turning to jelly beneath him.

“Look at me,” he growled.

My eyes fluttered open and Tyler leaned over, his mouth fumbling over mine, our breath mingling as he released.